


Masks are not just toys

by LeWanderinGaal



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, LinkedUniverse - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, As in you know, But they all are working on that, Childhood Trauma, Fluff, I added a somewhat fluffy ending, Other, Post-Majora's Mask, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Time Has Issues, Wild Has Issues, but hey!, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 18:19:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18579994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeWanderinGaal/pseuds/LeWanderinGaal
Summary: Masks.They can make a reunion more interesting, either by allowing the people to mess around or by bringing back memories and stories to tell.The problem is, not all of the masks bring good memories to everyone, some of them might be...dark.





	Masks are not just toys

**Author's Note:**

> JoJo’s update sent us all in the discord into a mess and theorizing reactions and what’s gonna happen next, so, this is my own interpretation of what could happen (and, as usual, we only hurt the boys :’v)
> 
> I must let you know I haven't played Breath of the Wild, so everything relating that title is pure guessing by fanarts, other fics and chats in the discord.

It was as if time had stopped.

 

Not _Time_ their leader and the older of them (mentally, cause Wind and Legend were pretty sure Wild and Time had been alive more or less the same years), but time itself.

 

Everything happened so fast and then...nothing. No movement; no one dared to say a thing and Wild was pretty sure he couldn’t even hear the birds singing or the wind blowing.

 

Time’s face was...harder to read than usual, and the 100 years sleep hero had no idea on how to feel about it. He just knew he didn’t like it. He was already _hating_ the aura he was getting from his mentor’s mentor, and _oh how he wished he hadn’t pulled out that damn mask_.

 

They were having fun, laughing and sharing something that seemed common among some of them, and Wild was feeling a little more connected to Time, something he was not used to.

 

Hell, Time was messing around with them, and sharing a little about his childhood, his _past_ , something he seemed to despite so much and very often, but his voice had seemed to be filled with nostalgia and longing to be as carefree as his memory-story let them know.

 

But all of that seemed to be a memory from days ago, because the situation took a turn so sharp it could as well have been.

 

After Time used a stalfo’s mask to spook Warrior out of his seat, Wild remembered the heart shaped mask with spikes around it that he found one day while scavenging for rare ingredients for his meals.

 

He had to admit the mask was pretty big for his face, and the big, round, red with yellow eyes did send shivers down his spine the first time he saw it, but after trying it on, he noticed how monsters didn’t go after him with it on, so it was a nice thing to use for easy night hunts when he didn’t want to bother with enemies.

 

The mask’s eyes reminded him of the one engraved in the stone helmet he also found buried on Arbiter’s Grounds. Must come from the same people, he thought that time.

 

All of that info and story he was going to tell the others soon died out and slipped from his mind because as he turned to see the other’s reaction’s, he felt a strong gust of wind and how the mask was snatched away from his face, and before he could say a thing, Time was throwing it on the fire, a somber look on his face, and his eye…

 

 _Oh Hylia his eye_.

 

Wild knew the old man was hard to read, and even Twili had trouble sometimes, but the clash of emotions on the only eye he usually kept open was...unsettling.

 

A quick glance would give you the _empty eyes_ vibe, but if you kept staring, as Wild was, out of shock, one would be able to see slight trauma, fear, sadness, and even _anger_ the mask seemed to pull out of him.

 

The remains of the boy’s laugh over Warrior’s reaction was cut sharply as they saw the blur Time became to take the mask off of Wild’s face and to see it being thrown at the fire.

 

Not even the cracking of burned wood could be heard.

 

Wild had no idea what was going on, but he was sure as hell it was his fault the mood had died.

 

He wanted to say something, to ask for answers to his multiple questions: _‘Time, are you okay?’, ‘Why are you burning the mask?’, ‘Did I say something that upset you?’, ‘Please, don’t burn off the mask, it’s been useful!’, ‘What did I do wrong?’, ‘[The mood dying out]Is this my fault?”_

 

He wanted to scream for his mask, to scream to avoid crying (because his leader almost hit him for _wearing a mask_ ).He wanted to run to save the mask, but he also wanted to run to escape the awfully tense air he was breathing with the others.

 

Wild didn’t understand what was going on, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to find out.

 

Without his permission, a wimper scaped his limps, but he covered his mouth with both of his hands. But such a small and quick noise seemed to unfroze time. Both the leader and the concept; as well as the others.

 

Wind quickly took off the bunny hoddie he had on; the ones who had masks on their hands also left them in what soon was a pile of Time’s masks; Twili moved next to Time, but the later took off from the fire Wild’s mask and tried to turn off the little flames still consuming it once it was on land.

 

The mask was almost intact, just the spikes were a little burned; after all, the mask had been a small amount of time over the fire (even though Wild felt those seconds like minutes). It was fixable if taken to the right person.

 

WIld haven’t moved from his position since everyone moved again, hands still over his mouth and the champion was trying not to shiver. Why, he wasn’t sure, maybe in the past he doesn't remember someone snatched things form him and then beated him? He couldn’t really tell, but his body seemed ready to accept whatever came after this.

 

Instead, Time just dropped backwards to the floor, sitting with his legs extended and using his hands as support behind him, his face looking at the starred night.

 

Again, no one said a thing, but Four glanced at Wild, a little worried for his friend.

 

Four knew Time and Twilight were from the same time line, and how some objects or places were similar to the ones on Time’s era. But Wild’s Hyrule was...an experience. When they first arrived there, Wind was almost sure they were on his Hyrule, because they were in some beach and a Korok was the first creature they saw, but soon enough, the town and rest of dried land told them it wasn’t. Then, the Zoras were pretty different, a little more similar to the ones in Twilight’s land but still not quite. But the ruins of certain places...specially Lon Lon Ranch...that put everyone in a not so comfortable situation.

 

In the end, Wild’s Hyrule seemed to be a mix of others and of course it’s own at the same time. So the mask must do something to do with a _really bad memory_ for Time.

 

No one said a thing, and even without turning his eyes Wild knew the others were sending glances between and to each other, silently asking ‘should we say something?’, ‘are we allowed to move?’ to the one they meet looks with.

 

It must have passed a lot of time, because the fire was already weaker than what they usually kept it at by the moment _someone_ spoke.

 

It was Time the one who unfroze them all.

 

“I’m sorry kid.” Wild was brave enough to take his hands off his mouth after hearing Times voice, so soft yet so vulnerable, as if anything could break him or as if he could breath anything with just his words.

 

And to be fair, Wild felt as small, useless and as an error as he felt when he _woke up_ , with no memory, no idea what to do nor what he did; but the only fact, the only tangible thing with proofs he had was how he messed thing up. How what laid before his eyes was _his fault._

 

Soon, his hands were moving faster than he could think what he was singing.

 

 _“What? No! I’m the one who’s sorry. I knew the mask was pretty scary, and I should have guessed any of you might had something to do with it. I shouldn’t have-”_  his shaking hands were stopped by a bigger pair, and he didn’t even know when Time got so close to him.

 

“Listen, it’s not your fault, okay?” Time then chooses to use sings to keep explaining, _“You couldn’t have known. I’m the one who kept it a secret, and none of you could have known if I didn't say a thing, specially with how…casual the conversation was going.”_ Time took some, well, time, to be able of finding the right way of formulating a sentence that could calm Wild down, because the poor kid looked paler than some of the Zora’s he met on his travels.

 

Luckily, it seemed to work, because the tension on the scarred hero’s shoulders left almost completely, and he seemed to be _breathing_ again.

 

 _“Well...then I suppose we’re even in, feeling guilty, so that must mean it’s none’s fault in the end. I guess.”_ Wild signed back, finally looking at their leader’s face without such awful feelings in the back of his mind, and without his body being prepared for _something bad_ to happen to him.

 

Time chuckled and nodded, which put at ease the rest of the boys. It seemed they had avoided a crisis, or the crisis itself hasn’t been as big as the one Legend had that one time the Shadow decided to take them to the illusion made island with a giant egg.

 

Time stood up, and went to pick up _the mask_ to give it back to Wild, who may have put it back into the enchanted bag a little to quickly, but one mentioned said rush.

 

On the other side of the fire, the pair of the shortest heroes were almost rumbling with the force they were using to keep quiet and to avoid asking, but Twilight, being the closest to both of the parts of the issue that just took event, was the one who voiced out the question.

 

Well, a question, but it could as well give them the answers they were looking for.

 

“Uuuh...so, that mask. Does it has a name?” Wild, after hearing his mentor, suddenly realized he didn’t know what the mask was supposed to be.

 

“The mask by itself, no. But it was once used to seal an entity. Majora. So people called it Majora’s Mask while it was possessed.” Time’s face seemed distant a little somber, but he kept going. “I purified it, per say; so it was left empty, so, in retrospective I shouldn’t have overreacted after seeing it because it’s nothing but a shell, a simple mask now.” He finished with a sight and ruffling his hair a little.

 

“Wait you can _seal in and purify_ masks?!” Hyrule, even though he was used to certain level of magic, still found some things very odd and confusing. Sorcerer level magic even.

 

“You can do that in almost everything if you know how.” Twi was quick to add, but while he was showing off his boomerang, somehow some of they knew he was referring to something else.

 

“Exactly, and many of my masks had or have magical powers. The bomb karet I didn’t let you have? It explodes, _while on your face_. That’s why I said I couldn't believe I played with some of them as a kid.” Time tossed Sky a pig-like face mask while complementing Twili’s answer, and motioned him to try it on.

 

Sky did as told, but had to almost take it off immediately, because his smell sense was quickly overstimulated with _a bunch_ of essences and smells.

 

“Wha-...How did you even use this??” Sky was again amazed by the Hero of Time’s skills, and wanted to learn more.

 

The mask was soon going between the rest of the team, some of them had the same reaction as Sky while others could handle it a little more.

 

Time shrugged, but answered anyway.

 

“You get used to it. When you had to get inside a water well, a cemetery, a temple full of Re-Deads, and even into a swamp, your nose gets used to strong smells...or messed up, still not sure.” Twilight shivered a little at this, because his nose did get tired and worn out as a wolf with so many smells. He wasn’t sure if he could handle it as a human too.

 

When the mask got to Wild’s hands, he used the fact Time’s attention was on him again to sing another question.

 

 _“The mask, Majora’s, did you get it on the same adventure as the bunny cap?”_ He kept using sign language, because it felt safer and he still wasn’t sure if his voice would come out.

 

“The bunny cap and kaeto mask, among a couple more, I got them in a couple of my travels. But, let’s leave it at the fact that mask had something to do with the time I fought the moon.” And with that Time grabbed the mask Wild was giving him back and got back to eating dinner.

 

The rest of the gang was left flabbergasted, and the short duo was left with more questions. Well, they all were, but Wild was just glad and relieved _whatever_ happened some moments earlier was over.

 

He supposes they all need a better communication to avoid sensitive topics (like Zeldas), or avoid almost committing a mistake (like the seagull almost hunt issue) or just in general, because they were a team.

 

And because the Shadow could use whatever weakness they had and the others didn’t know about as an advantage in whatever it was planning.

**Author's Note:**

> I TOOK ALMOST A WEEK TO FINISH THIS, and it's not even that long :(  
> Also, I'm not sure how I wanted to end this fic the first night I stayed up writing most of it, but I still like it, I think…
> 
> Anyway, JoJo's probably gonna make Time make a joke about the moon again, with how “mysterious” he likes to be to the others and leaving them not knowing what to say...to be honest I don't see something as dramatic as this happening, but angst with a little of fluff is nice v:


End file.
